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Iowa Union Members Oppose McCain’s Health Care Tax |
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Sen. John McCain is hopping from state to state, touting his new health care plan. And everywhere he goes, union members are there to tell him his plan won’t work for working people.
Yesterday, McCain traveled to Des Moines, Iowa, for a town hall meeting on health care, and more than 40 union members and allies gathered outside to let people know about McCain’s proposal and demanding real health care reform.
Outside the town hall, union members, including Iowa Federation of Labor President Ken Sagar, carried signs asking for real solutions to the health care crisis. The action is just one part of the union movement’s campaign to turn around Iowa and the country.
We’ve written a lot about what McCain’s current proposal could mean for worker and have noted it actually could worsen the current health care system.
Experts say McCain’s plan would create new taxes on health benefits and it wouldn’t make health care more affordable for working families. Millions of people who receive job-based health benefits could find themselves thrown out of their health care plan and into the private insurance market. Author Ed Kilgore called the McCain proposal “small change, and for the worse.”
The McCain plan is not the answer we need in our broken health care system.
This weekend, Iowa union members will hold a kickoff training for Labor 2008, the AFL-CIO’s political mobilization program, and health care is at the heart of this effort. More than 200 of Iowa’s union leaders and activists attended a meeting on health care sponsored by the Quad-City, Illinois and Iowa Federation of Labor, and health care is the focus of worksite leafleting, phone banks and a major door-to-door labor walk coming up May 17.
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John McCain’s health care proposal is the perfect opportunity for the AFL-CIO to produce the labor movement’s version of the Harry & Louise commercials that torpedoed Hillary Clinton’s first attempt at solving the health insurance crisis. Here goes:
Harry: Have you seen John McCain’s health care proposal? He wants us to pay income taxes on the health insurance benefits we get through our employers. We can barely afford the latest increases to our monthly premium, the copays for doctor’s visits, and the cost of the meds I need that have been classified as tier 4.
Louise: And I thought our biggest worry was whether the government would take away our right to choose our own doctor; the John McCain plan would take away our right to health insurance provided by our employers.
Harry: John McCain just doesn’t understand the health insurance crisis facing working Americans.
Louise: A vote for John McCain will be very expensive indeed!